Battle of Edgecote Moor | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of Wars of the Roses | |||||||
|
|||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
House of York (rebel) | House of York (royal) | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Robin of Redesdale |
William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke † Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Devon † |
||||||
Strength | |||||||
Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Unknown | Unknown |
The Battle of Edgecote Moor took place 6 miles (9.7 km) north east of Banbury, Oxfordshire, in what is now the civil parish of Chipping Warden and Edgcote, England on 26 July 1469 during the Wars of the Roses. The site of the battle was actually Danes Moor in Northamptonshire, at a crossing of a tributary of the River Cherwell. The battle saw supporters of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, defeat the forces of King Edward IV, leading to the king's capitulation soon afterwards.
The Earl of Warwick came to be in open rebellion against Edward by 1469. Eight years after the great Yorkists' victory in battle of Towton in which The Kingmaker took crucial part, he and Edward IV fell out. In 1464 Warwick was in the middle of negotiations with pro-Lancastrian France, and he knew that a royal marriage with a French princess could solve their problems. Warwick told Louis XI that Edward would be delighted to marry the French princess, but soon afterwards was informed of the humiliating truth: Edward had secretly been married to Elizabeth Woodville, a commoner, for the past six months. Later on, Elizabeth's brothers and sisters were married off to ladies and nobles of importance, throughout the land. Most of these marriages offended Warwick in some way, and at least one was a direct insult to his family.
Warwick was also angered by Edward's constant refusal to let George, Duke of Clarence, marry Warwick's eldest daughter. Edward claimed hypocritically that Clarence would serve for a diplomatic marriage and none other.
Warwick no longer exercised any control or even influence over his cousin, the King, in political matters. Thoughts turned to rebellion in Warwick's mind, a rebellion in which he already had an ally: the Duke of Clarence, heir to the English throne while the king had no male offspring.